Radical Hospitality

If a stranger came to your door, would you welcome them in? Offer them food even if you knew you didn’t even have enough for your own family? Would you give them your time although your entire livelihood depended on it? Would you do all that if he/she looked completely different than you? If they didn’t  speak your language?

Few of us would say yes to those questions. I know I sure wouldn’t. 

While we may claim to be open and hospitable to all, there is a limit to our hospitality and we know it. If you’ve never read the book Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love (Amazon link), you really should.  No matter what your age, religion or faith practice may be, the insights of the book are ones that can universally strengthen your connection to your friends, family and community.  Nonetheless, every act of hospitality or openness we may encounter in the States will never hold a candle to the immense hospitality I have witnessed since arriving at the village of Poano. 

Poano is a fairly large (pop appox 1,000) village about an hour outside Kumasi.  Like walking into World Vision commercial, this is probably closer to the face of Africa most think of in the Western world-poverty, malnutrition, limited access to clean water and other vital resources.  However, it is among these people that have so little that I have learned what radical hospitality really means.  Every single person I’ve encountered, big or small, old or young, rich or poor, have welcomed us into their lives to an extent that is beyond words.

Getting a constant stream of attention from hundreds of people one would imagine it to be incredibly bothersome, and in many situations prior to this in Accra and Kumasi it really was.  However, people here are not screaming for money or annoyance, they genuinely want to know you and talk to you.  Most people have never ever seen an obruni.  And because of little access to TV for children it is difficult to even imagine- babies cry instantly at the sight of us, but most children are just fascinated and follow us around by the dozens.  There were quite a few ‘obruni’ calls the first day or so, but as I said, people do honestly want to know you, so now I get “Sister Giselle” or “Sister Akos” calls (Akos is short for Akousia- Sunday born). 

People offer their homes, food, time, everything they have to make you more comfortable. Even without speaking English, they find a way to offer their incredible hospitality. Random strangers have come to our ‘headquarters’ (a house we have taken over as the main place for meetings and eating) and bring us crops from their farm to welcome us, people invite us to their houses, parties, farms.  

A couple of days ago, due to a massive cockroaches crawling out of the KVIP at the headquarters, I went to my home in the middle of the day to use the KVIP there.*  When I got home I found my family eating lunch. 

The six of us students have three full-time staff members, including a cook, we don’t have a lot of food, but we have plenty, and cooked to our liking. We had just finished a lunch of stew, yams and fruit, and when I got home I found my family each eating a spoonful of white rice.  Nothing more.  They saw me and proceeded to ask me if I had eaten and offer some of their rice, right off their own plates. 

We can barely communicate in my broken Twi, but to them that is no hindrance to their kindness.  

The little girls in my home actually got to private school.  So it is obvious that the little money they have is being used for school fees.  (A private school education has absolutely no comparison to the lacking education of public schools in this village. To have a hope for furthering education into high school and even college, a private education is the only way to do so). 

More than a wake-up call to the reality in where I’m living, it was a reminder of the extraordinarily blessed my life has been and continues to be. It can only been with extreme humility that I can witness such hospitality. To have so little, and give so much, is something we could all learn from.

*KVIP stands for Kumasi Ventilated Improved Pit, ie: the toilet. Literally, it’s a giant hole full of…. And to have one is quite a luxury.